


Floorboard Sonata

by Jellyfax



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Classical Music, Fluff, Hate to Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Music, Musician Bilbo, Neighbors, Student Thorin, Thorin-centric, Violinist Bilbo, passive aggressive notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellyfax/pseuds/Jellyfax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Thorin grumbled as he went back upstairs and hastily scribbled <b>‘It’s 2am. Shut up.’</b> onto a scrap of paper and shoved it unceremoniously through the small gap between the door and the floorboards beneath it.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A tale of neighbours and concertos and passive-aggressive notes. And a bit of unforeseen romance as well, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Allegro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenbach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenbach/gifts).



> Happy Hobbit Holiday to the lovely [serenbach!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/serenbach)
> 
> This isn't a coffee shop AU, so I hope this is the kind of AU you'll like! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> You can listen to the accompanying playlist [here!](http://8tracks.com/kirksfatshirts/floorboard-sonata)

Thorin had grown up in a very large house surrounded by his family. He had never wanted for anything; loving parents, irritating but lovable siblings, never short of money or affection. He scrubbed a hand over his beard. His father had had a wonderful beard, he had been trying to emulate him at first, but then he had just got lazy. It was getting too long, and he was beginning to look like a hobo. At least that’s what Dis said. He looked around his meagre living space and sighed. How had he got to this? A leaky old apartment in Islington, two part time jobs to support his part time degree, and barely enough friends to warrant a whole hand to count them on.

His sister would tell him to stop sulking, then clip him round the ear. She may have been the younger of the two of them, but she had inherited their mother’s knack for parenting, which came in handy as a single mum to two small boys.

He glanced over at the sole photograph he kept on his cluttered desk and ran a finger over the two chubby faces smiling out from it. He missed them so much it hurt sometimes. He would never be a great father himself, but he knew how to love his nephews with all of his heart.

His train of thought was rather rudely interrupted by the sound of a stringed instrument being tuned unceremoniously from downstairs. Thorin frowned. The instrument started up again, this time wailing out notes more rhythmically, several strings at once, vibrato shaking the notes vigorously as the notes slid higher and higher, until they paused poignantly before striking the chords once again.

Thorin knew a little about classical music. He had been brought up on it, and grew to hate it as a result. He knew each piece and exactly why he hated it. The piece thrumming through his floorboards at that precise moment was Dvořák’s lesser loved violin concerto, for good reason in Thorin’s opinion, with all its harsh trills and dissonant chords. His grandfather had loved Dvořák.

Thorin loathed Dvořák.

He grumbled and glanced at the clock. It read 02:07 in glaring green numbers. It was too late for this … or, rather, too early. He groaned as he got up from the chair and left the door on the latch as he made his way downstairs.

He rapped on the ugly green door of the flat below him. There was no answer.

He could still vaguely hear the violin through the door. Irritatingly enough it was quieter outside the front door than it was in his own apartment.

Knocking again, more firmly this time, he scowled at the pristine paintwork of apartment 14a. Whoever owned the place must have payed special attention to the door. The rest of the block had peeling paint and faded numbers, but this door was recently painted, the numbers painted on in gold cursive.

Thorin’s frown deepened at the lack of an answer for the second time.

He grumbled as he went back upstairs and hastily scribbled ‘ _It’s 2am. Shut up.’_ onto a scrap of paper and shoved it unceremoniously through the small gap between the door and the floorboards beneath it.

By the time he had reached his own apartment again the music had stopped. Thorin sighed again and looked at the stack of papers on his desk. It could wait until tomorrow.

He drifted off to the sounds of rumbling trains and distant sirens. Better that than Dvořák any day.

*

“You look less cheerful than usual Thorin, and that’s saying something.” Dwalin said as he dumped his bag behind the counter and found a clean apron from the top of the pile.

“Hard to function without sleep. Hard to sleep when you’re being serenaded by some overly enthusiastic violinist from downstairs.” He replied gruffly, punching his card into the machine.

“Damn, and I thought my neighbours were bad. Bloody freshers… don’t know why they feel the need to go out drinking every night … where they get the money is beyond me!”

Thorin snorted and began to collect glasses that had been left on the bar. Working at the pub wasn’t exactly enthralling, but it paid the bills, and fit well around his lectures and other jobs.

When he got home that night he could hear the music again. It was something far calmer, but nonetheless irritating. Thorin sighed, too tired to make a fuss. Instead he simply lay there and listened. It was Bruch, and in G minor, he knew that much. Instead of throwing him into a rage, the way it was played was almost soothing after a while. He could almost feel his mother’s hand in his hair as he slipped into welcome unconsciousness.

*

Thorin took it back. Last time was a fluke. He hated the violinist even more. What _were_ they playing? It sounded like film music, but it didn’t sound like anything from any film he had ever seen. It was playful, full of glissando, notes jumping from one octave to the next. Then all of a sudden it changed into sweepingly romantic, ending with a soft, dreamy trill, before dancing back to the glissando-filled scales. Then came the discordance and Thorin wanted to stamp on the floor hard enough to crack plaster, but he didn’t. For some reason this odd piece had entranced him. He could imagine whoever was playing it swaying with every stroke of the bow, sweat beading on their brow, a pained expression painted on their face as they reached the highest notes.

He wasn’t sure what possessed him, but once they had finished Thorin tore a piece of paper from his journal and scribbled another hasty message in his winding handwriting.

The next morning he pushed the note under the door of the flat below him and continued on his way to class.

*

The pub had closed later than usual that Friday. It was gone half past one in the morning before Thorin had even been able to close up, and by the time he’d shoved the stiff door open and finally collapsed onto his ratty old sofa, it was gone two. As he sat their Thorin found himself in a conundrum once again. More music was seeping in from downstairs again.

The last time they had played, Thorin had taken back his compliments, especially regarding the violinist’s taste in music, but tonight was different again. Their classical taste was certainly varied. From Dvořák to what Thorin had discovered was Korngold to Vivaldi. This performance had Thorin on the edge of his seat, quite literally. The opening chords had woken him up from whatever slumber he had drifted off into. Whatever reason they had for playing at this time, it certainly didn’t seem like practicing. Whoever it was downstairs was putting every ounce of themselves into the piece. When it was Bruch he was convinced whoever was playing was tall and slender, elegant fingers splayed across the neck of the instrument as they played. This, though, this was different. There was power in this, passion that belied someone larger; throwing their weight into every down stroke.

When Thorin returned home that night he found a reply nudged under his door. It was written on lined paper torn from a notebook of some kind, and the writing was round and cursive, penned in blue biro.

Thorin snorted. Whoever _B_ was, they were really pushing their luck. However, Thorin was inclined to forgive them as the soothing sound of silence beckoned to him from all around. Rude, petulant, and ungrateful he may have been, but he was also quite effective, apparently.

*

When Thorin got home from his shift that Saturday it seemed that B from downstairs had decided that Saturday night was a night for Schubert. Thorin put the kettle on and listened to the sound of the violin’s notes cheerfully swaying one way and another. His mother had liked Schubert, and Thorin found himself warming to the violinist purely from association. The music was rich, and filled the apartment with warm sound. He hated to admit it, but Thorin was coming to grudgingly enjoy these private late night concerts.

His thoughts strayed once again to the mysterious musician. He wasn’t even sure what gender they were, let alone what they looked like, but listening to the dulcet melody and turning the reply over in his hands, Thorin couldn’t help but imagine.

Violinists tended to look a certain way, in Thorin’s experience. The women tended to be willowy, slender, and feminine, well spoken with an intelligent glint in their eyes. The men, however, leant towards arrogance, tall and lean, with a bought of confidence just shy of a brass player. He imagined that it wouldn’t much matter what B identified as, since the image in his head was neither one way, nor the other. He imagined them to be tall, that would account for the weightiness, but leanly slender, muscled but not excessively. The kind of person who may go for runs along the Embankment once a week, and liked to eat seafood and fresh vegetables. They probably went to church every now and again, although not out of faith, more out of custom, and the desire to listen to as much music as possible. That being said, what someone like that was doing in a hovel like this, Thorin had no idea.

The next morning he slipped another note under 14a’s door.

He returned to find another reply waiting for him, accompanied by the romantic sweeps of Elgar.

Despite himself Thorin smiled.

*

London in November was far from the romantic ideal of almost-Christmastime. That awkward month between one festivity and the next, drenched in drizzle and biting winds. Thorin shuddered as he looked out of the window. He hated having to walk to work in the rain, but the tube was on strike again and the buses would be packed. Throwing on his coat and scarf he turned to leave when he felt a familiar piece of paper in his pocket. Taking it out he realised that he must have been wearing the same coat when he came back from work last. Perhaps he would put in a request after all.

The next piece Thorin heard through the floor was Mozart. It was bright and cheerful, as though simply playing something cheerful would dispel the dire weather outside. As though the merry jumping of notes would stop the ever-present downpour, and coax the sun out from behind the blanket of clouds that had been laying persistently over the city since the beginning of the week. He looked out into the darkness of the dreary early morning and couldn’t help but smile. Maybe it would.

*

It was strange, looking forward to coming back home to his dingy little flat. He had never liked the place, it was all he could afford on his part time salary that was anywhere near the university, but this person, B whoever they were, made his time in the flat that much easier. He could finish his work while they played, and it made him feel slightly less alone. He still had no idea what they were really like, his only companion as faceless as the radio, only communicating in sarcastic scribbles. However B’s last note was warmer than any beforehand. Perhaps it was simply because Thorin had complimented him for once, but whatever it was in had kindled something warm in Thorin’s chest.


	2. Adagio

 

 

*

Much to Thorin’s surprise, and delight, he returned home to find a piece of paper wedged beneath his apartment door.

Thorin smiled, listening to the airy trills from below him, running a thumb absentmindedly over the note. The music flitted and fluttered as naturally as a bird on the wing, swooping and soaring, playful and yet palliative at the same time. If it was a guess, it was a good one. Vaughan Williams was a favourite of his. There was something about his music that reminded him of the rolling hills and woodlands of his childhood.

Once again Thorin found himself thinking about this enigmatic ‘B’. He bet they liked to watch old movies in some big, soft armchair. Nothing as mainstream as Westerns, probably nothing Hepburn either. No, Thorin imagined they were more into Frederic March than Clarke Gable. They were probably quietly pretentious like that, not overtly, and not offensively, just naturally a little off the beaten track, and proud of it. He only wished he knew a little more, just so that he could form a real image in his head.

Thorin chewed his lip. Was it too forward? Creepy, even? He wanted to get to know his mysterious neighbour, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to simply go downstairs and knock. It wasn’t like he didn’t deal with meeting and talking to new people every day, but this was different. For a reason that he simply couldn’t place Thorin really didn’t want to screw this up. He couldn’t make a careless comment and then never see or hear from this person ever again. Mustering up all of his courage Thorin folded the note in half and slid it under the door as he went past.

The note was the only thing Thorin could think of for the entirety of his shift. What if he had been wrong? What if B from downstairs had only been replying out of courtesy? What if he hadn’t wanted to talk at all, and he had overstepped?

Thorin smiled as he turned the note over in his hand. So he hadn’t been wrong, B definitely wanted to talk, even if it was only via notes slid under doors.

_ _

The notes were becoming a rather regular thing, and Thorin would be lying if he said he hadn’t started to look forward to the hastily scribbled messages half-hidden under his ratty old welcome mat. They talked about the weather more often than not, the price of milk going up, and other such mundane things. During their first real conversation Thorin had found out little snippets of his neighbour’s life, a little window into what made them who they were. What was strange was that instead of sating his curiosity, it had only left Thorin itching to know more.

He stared at the scrap of paper and frowned. Something light and unassuming. That would be fine, right? Small talk, but not as small as the talk they’d been keeping up of late. What did people even talk about?

Thorin raised a brow. So they weren’t the pretentious movie type at all. He still reckoned they had a comfy chair, but perhaps it was accompanied more by tortilla chips than cheese and biscuits. He wasn’t sure why but there was something about how perfectly ordinary that was that warmed his chest.

 _Nothing like your parents_. A voice in the back of his mind whispered.

Thorin laughed out loud and with a wry grin penned a note in return.

__

 *

__

Thorin slept that night with fire burning behind his eyes, smoke in his lungs, and pain in his heart, but when he woke, sweating and shaking in the dark of the early morning, he could hear the soothing sounds of a bow drifting over finely tuned strings, singing of two young lovers, adamant they didn’t need one another, only to fall completely and irreconcilably for one another. _Of course,_ Thorin thought as sleep came to claim him once again, _they lived happily ever after. If only real life were that simple._

_*_


	3. Finale

It struck Thorin upon hearing the violin next that whoever it was playing must be very much in love. He had heard renditions of Gade’s concerto before, but there was something dreamier about this. It sounded as though the violinist’s heart was singing through their strings. The lilting triplets betrayed a measure of joy that Thorin was sure was bringing a smile to their face. For a reason that Thorin wasn’t willing to admit, it didn’t make him smile. In fact if anything it put him in a foul mood.

He knew why he was so irritated by the sound of such pleasant music, he was just unwilling to admit it. It had been over a month since they had started to exchange notes, and Thorin had begun to become more than a little attached to B from downstairs. Whoever they were they were talented, and interesting, and witty, and definitely flirtatious. He felt comfortable talking to them about things that he didn’t even talk to Dwalin about. Maybe it was the anonymity, but it felt like more than that. If all of this was simply friendly discourse, Thorin felt rather led on.

Of course he had no right to be, not really. He’d never met this person, he couldn’t lay any claim to them in the slightest. Perhaps they exchanged notes with all of their neighbours. Perhaps Thorin wasn’t so special to them after all. In fact, it seemed that Thorin had been taken for a fool. He had gone out on a limb, and he had received nothing but silence.

He had felt sick sliding that note under 14a’s door, but he was fairly certain it would be a welcome invitation. Instead he had heard nothing. No note. No reply. Nothing.

All he had heard was the sultry sound of Bizet, followed a few days later by a much more sedate rendition of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, the second movement, almost plaintive as it soaked in through his floorboards. For the first time since he’d first heard his neighbour play Thorin wished it would stop. He didn’t want to be reminded of what a fool he had made of himself.

*

The music was changing, Thorin thought, as the days wore on. He had tried to ignore it, but there was only so much you could do without industrial earplugs. The music wasn’t as animated any more, it was as if the soul had gone completely from every piece they played. Gone was the dancing Allegro and stately Andante, replaced with Largo, Lento, and most worryingly of all, Lacrimoso. His grandfather used to sit him down and make him describe what he felt as he listened to the music. He gave him words like bouncy and sweet, and his grandfather replaced them with Spiccato and Dolcissimo. He didn’t want to think about his grandfather, he _never_ wanted to think about his grandfather, but the sadder the music got, the more his mind lingered on things he would rather have forgotten entirely.

That night the violin haunted his apartment, the notes long and melancholic, wrapping themselves around him, singing their sorrow until Thorin could take it no longer. Heaving in a ragged breath he allowed himself to cry for the first time in longer than he could remember.

It shouldn’t have meant anything, this disembodied music, he didn’t know the piece, or the player, but as every crescendo broke over him like waves on a shore, a little more of his mental barriers were worn away until he felt raw with emotion. Every note that followed made him shudder. Too much sensation, too many feelings that he had spent so many years trying to forget.

The music took him back, back to the dark of the wardrobe he and his siblings would hide in when their grandfather got violent, the salty scent of his brother’s tears filling the cramped space as he held him tightly to his chest. It took him back to the sound of glass shattering as his father dropped the bottle of whisky he had drained as he passed out at the kitchen table. It took him back to the dampness of the grass seeping into his socks as he watched the house he had loved, and the people he had loved in it, burn brilliantly against the night sky. He had _tasted_ the salt then, his own tears running mournful tracks into the soot staining his face. He had held his sister’s hand so tightly that night that it had bruised her, but she had held back just as tightly. The two of them, stood out alone on their vast lawn, the only family they had in the world.

He was filled with a sudden urge to run back to her, to her little boys, and never to leave them ever again. He missed them terribly. He missed his parents too, and his brother. He even missed his grandfather, or at least the man he had been before the madness and alcoholism had taken him. He would never miss that man. The man who had destroyed everything he had loved in one selfish act of defiant hatred. If Thror couldn’t have it, then no one could.

Thorin wiped his nose haphazardly on his sleeve and threw open his front door. He stumbled down the stairs and found himself once again stood outside the green door of apartment 14a. He banged on it with his full fist. The playing didn’t stop. He banged on it again. Still the desolate notes drifted towards him.

“Please. I don’t know you, but please stop.” He choked out. “Please. I can’t take it anymore.”

The music stopped. Thorin shuddered out a sigh of relief. Then he heard the voice through the door. 

“You once complimented my playing. What changed your mind?”

“It’s not the playing, it’s not … it’s so sad I can’t bear it. I … please, play _anything_ else. I just can’t bear the thought of how much you must have been hurt to play like that.”

“You … why do you care if I’ve been hurt?”

“All of those stupid notes through the door, all of these months. Your music is always there, like a friend, like family. Over the past few months you’ve become the only reason I want to come back to this shit hole. I know so little about you really, but I _do_ know you are smart, and witty, and dry humoured, and flirtatious, you have terrible taste in music, and worse taste in food, but you’re so goddamn talented. Your playing makes me feel things that I haven’t allowed myself to feel for so long.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Of course! Why else would I be stood outside your door at three in the morning telling you this?”

Thorin could hear several locks shifted, and the dull slide of a bolt being drawn back. Then, with a crack and a creak the green door opened.

Stood in the doorway was a man. Thorin had known that from his voice, but he was nothing like what he had been expecting. He was short, a good head shorter than Thorin himself, with a tousled mess of auburn curls that fell around his face, framing his round cheeks almost cherubically. What distracted Thorin the most though was his eyes. While his face was soft and gentle, his eyes were a steely grey, like the colour of the sea before a storm. They were defiantly intelligent, and very much fixed on his own.

“Oh.”

“Sorry. I must look a state.” Thorin muttered apologetically, thinking of his blotchy, tear-stained face, scruffy beard, and barely tamed bed hair.

“No.” Said the man. “No, not at all.”

Thorin raised a brow.

“Only, you aren’t what I was expecting.”

“Neither are you.”

They looked at one another silently for a moment before the man in the doorway cleared his throat nervously.

“Would you like to come in?”

“Why are you so sad?” Thorin blurted out.

The man frowned at him curiously. “I’m not sure any more. I thought I had had my heart broken, but here you are.”

“Here I am?”

“Here you are.” He said with a smile. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Thorin nodded and followed the man inside.

“If you really want to know.” The man said as he poured a large pot of tea into two cups. “I was sad because I had started to connect with this mysterious person from upstairs. At first they hated my music, but after a while they began to compliment it. The thought of them listening made playing exciting. I haven’t played for anyone in years, you see. The more I thought about that person, the more I wanted to get know them. What music they liked, how it made them feel, you know? That says a lot about a person, and the more I got to know them, the more I liked them. After a while I found myself wondering what they looked like. I started thinking about them all the time, started to feel a fluttering in my chest when I thought of them.”

He poured the milk in slowly stirring it twice before taking a sip and humming contentedly.

“It was stupid, since I’d never really met them, and I only knew them as ‘T’, but that connection I felt had only grown. I hoped that maybe they felt the same way. That after a few more notes and late night concerts they might want to at least know my name. They never asked.”

“I neve-” Thorin began but the man simply shook his head.

“I never asked either, so I’m not one to talk. I was thinking about asking them in for a cup of tea one time, but our paths never crossed. Wrong timing and all.” He took another long drink. “Then they asked me to dinner, and I accepted quite wholeheartedly. Then I stopped getting notes. I didn’t know why, but they just stopped completely. I still heard whoever it was upstairs, so I knew they could hear me. I had no right to, but I honestly felt heartbroken. How ridiculous is that?”

“I never received a reply.”

The man looked up, his eyes distractingly bright with confusion. “What?”

“That’s why I stopped sending notes. I asked you to dinner, and didn’t hear back. Then I heard you playing so passionately I thought you must have … have fallen in love with someone else. I knew that it was stupid, but I got jealous. I decided to leave you alone, to love whoever you were loving in peace. Then your playing got gradually sadder until I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

“You were jealous?”

“I had no right to be.”

“And no need.” He said, a smile playing across his features. “Here, you finish your tea and I’ll play you something. Something just for you, just so that you know. Listen carefully and then tell me how I’m feeling.”

With that the man walked over to the music stand and leafed out a few pages of sheet music, picked up his violin and bow and began to play.

The notes were sweet and clear, and the warmth from his smile radiated through the air. Thorin had been right, he was the kind of musician to sway as he played, but gently, as though it took no effort at all. It was as though the violin was simply an extension of his body, singing everything his heart wanted to sing, but couldn’t. His fingers weren’t slender like he had first imagined, but they were light and spry, dancing up and down the strings as the lilting melody progressed. He didn’t throw himself into the piece, instead he became one with it, losing himself in it.

Watching him play was entrancing; the way he moved, and the way the light glistened off his warm curls, and the shadows that caught the corners of his mouth as they creased into a lazily contented curve. It was everything Thorin had dreamed of and more. His heart shouldn’t have been beating as loudly as it was, but the sound caught in his ears and his chest until he could barely breathe.

As the last notes rang out through the silence of the flat the man turned to look at him expectantly. Thorin opened his mouth to speak but found that there were no words. Instead he got up and walked towards him, smiling in disbelief. He ran a thumb over the apple of his cheek and leant down to touch their foreheads together. The man’s breathing was so shallow, and his pulse so quick under his fingertips as Thorin gently pressed their lips together. It was warm, dry, and chaste, but it was so much more than Thorin had dared to hope for. The man’s eyes fluttered open again and this time his smile was just brilliant.

“You are incredible.” He said quietly, his voice huskier than he remembered it being. “You are bewitching, and I don’t even know your name.”

The man laughed, reaching up to bring them closer again, kissing him for a second and third time. His laugh, Thorin thought, was just as musical as anything he could play on the violin.

“My name is Bilbo.”

Thorin ran his thumb over Bilbo’s lower lip.

“Bilbo.” He mused. “I’m Thorin.”

“Hello, Thorin.” He replied, quite breathlessly. “Thorin, I think I may be rather in love with you.”

“Bilbo.” Thorin said, nuzzling their noses together affectionately. “I think I may be rather in love with you too.”

 

~ FIN ~

 


	4. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you had a lovely Christmas day! Here's a little fluffy feelingsfest final epilogue for you (sorry it's so sappy, this is what happens when you're not around your family for Christmas!)

Christmas was never the easiest time for Bilbo, he had lost his parents at Christmastime, and even the bright lights of the holiday season couldn’t distract from the loneliness in his heart. He had no family left, and few friends, so curling up in bed for the whole day, avoiding just about anything and everything was his holiday tradition.

This year, though, was a little different.

“Stop fussing and help me move the sofa!”

Thorin’s voice snapped him from his melancholy train of thought. He chewed on his lip and grasped the opposite end of the sofa to Thorin, and on his signal lifted it up and shuffled it across the living room.

“How will I know that they’ll even like me?” Bilbo said as they set it down next to their meagre Christmas tree.

Thorin raised an unimpressed brow. “They’ll like you.”

“But how do you know?”

Thorin sighed as he walked over to Bilbo, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.

“They’ll like you, because I like you.” He said quietly, his voice rumbling low and contented in his chest. “And they’ll love you, because I love you.”

Bilbo leaned into Thorin’s chest and let him wrap his arms around him. “Trust me.” He murmured into his curls.

They broke apart at a small, but insistent rapping at the door. Thorin gave Bilbo one last kiss before heading through to answer the door. Instead of the adult he had been expecting, Bilbo was surprised to see, standing in the doorway, a small boy, no more than five or six years old. The boy was all blonde curls and sunshine, beaming his gap-toothed smile towards his uncle, who was grinning in return.

“I was expecting my nephew, but he’s been replaced by a young man. Who are you and what have you done with my little Fili?”

The boy laughed as Thorin stuck his hand out for him to shake, mock severity on his face, before scooping him up in his arms and squeezing him hard.

“Uncle Thorin _stop_!” He giggled as he spun him around. Then his blue eyes locked to Bilbo’s own and the laughter subsided.

Thorin looked around, hoisting the boy onto his hip. “Fili, this is Bilbo. Bilbo, my eldest nephew, Fili.”

Fili looked up at him suspiciously, before sticking his hand out. “Fili Vilison at your service.”

Bilbo glanced quickly up at Thorin who gave him an amused nod. So Bilbo took Fili’s small hand in his own, shaking in as firmly as he dared. “Bilbo Baggins at yours.”

After another few moments of consideration Fili nodded and took his hand back.

Before Bilbo could say anything else he heard a delighted squeal from the doorway. Swallowing thickly Bilbo turned to see a woman, almost as tall as Thorin, with the same dark hair and severe brow, holding a smaller boy with hair to match her own.

“Dis.” Thorin said softly to the woman, before turning to the small boy. “And my little Kili! Look how much you’ve grown!”

Kili smiled broadly, reaching his pudgy hands out towards his uncle. Dis handed him over to Thorin, who rested him on the other hip, holding both boys close to him.

“You’re getting too heavy for me to hold you both, look how much you’ve grown!” Thorin said, with not a small measure of genuine awe. “Dis, you’ve you two young men on your hands, where did my little boys go?”

Dis chuckled. “I ask myself that question every day.”

Kili began to babble about presents and Thorin looked at the boys like they were the stars, carrying them into the living room, listening intently to their excited chatter.

“So this is the musician.”

Bilbo’s stomach lurched as he turned back around to see Dis, her face falling critically as she looked him up and down. He stuck his hand out, much as Fili had done only moments before. “Bilbo Baggins.”

Dis looked at his outstretched hand, glanced over to where her brother had disappeared to, before returning her gaze to Bilbo.

“You really do love him don’t you?” She said softly, the critical look melting into something a lot sadder.

He nodded. “I … I really do. It’s barely been a month since our first date, but I think I really do.”

She hummed in agreement. “I can see it in the way you look at him, and the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. Thorin can be a stubborn sod at times, but around you he melts. You should have heard the way he talked about you when we last spoke. It’s the same around the boys, you know. That only happens around family.”

Bilbo swallowed, suddenly nervous for an entirely different reason.

Dis ignored his still outstretched hand and embraced him warmly. “Welcome to the family.”

Bilbo could feel the tears welling up in his eyes as he hugged her back. He hadn’t been called family by anyone in so long.

When she pulled away he saw she had tears in her eyes as well. “He deserves so much to be happy. It’s been so long since he really has been. Thank you.”

Bilbo choked back another bout of tears as Dis laughed a watery laugh, brushing her own tears away. “Right, none of this. It’s Christmas, we have a dinner to finish preparing, and I was quite hoping I could hear you play something.”

Smiling warmly Bilbo nodded.

Bilbo hadn’t enjoyed Christmas since his parents had died, but sat in the cosy warmth of Thorin’s flat, surrounded by the sounds of Fili playing by the tree, with Kili squealing in delight nearby, the smell of roast lamb and rosemary filling the kitchen, with his violin in his hand, Bilbo had never been happier.


End file.
